In the related application, a method and system is described for monitoring the location and load status of containers within the boundaries of a manufacturing or shipping or warehouse facility. The invention eliminates the substantial cost of locating containers within sprawling shipping container receiving yards, so that the container can be readily brought to an assigned dock for unloading. The present application focuses even more closely on the movement and load status of containers in transit and within yards and production facilities such as automobile factories, and describes unobvious enhancements and additions to the container monitoring methods and systems which yield even more accurate and detailed information on the location and status of containers, shipping racks, and running inventories. The described enhancements reduce waste and inefficiency in the common shipping process from a supplier (such as a manufacturer of parts), a carrier (such as a trucking or shipping or freight forwarding company), a warehouse, and an end customer who assembles parts together to make a complete product.
Tracking of containers in transit is well developed, including the use of satellites and other electronic technology to obtain real-time data on in transit locations. Inventory accounting and management is also a well developed filed in which the contents of very large warehouses are ascertainable to high level of detail at any point in time. Areas which lack total control over the status and accounting of goods and the conveyances needed to move the goods are in yards in which containers are received at a facility, and in the facilities. Without information on the location and load status of containers at a facility, or an accounting for a number of parts (especially small parts) within a facility, a manufacturer or supplier or carrier has no way of calculating a current, real-time accounting of assets.
For example, in a typical sale and shipment of goods transaction, a carrier may know from a satellite tracking system that a container has reached a factory, but does not know if the container has been emptied, partially emptied, reloaded, or the contents of a reload such as racks. The carrier's "asset" in the shipping transaction is a bill of lading which he presents to the factory upon completion of the delivery. But the bill of lading cannot be paid upon until the delivery is complete. Thus the carrier must have information on the load status of the container at the factory. A supplier's asset is the account receivable for the goods delivered to the factory. Payment of the supplier's invoice may be conditioned upon not only delivery of the goods, but actual assembly of the goods into a finished product, known as "paid-on-production". The supplier's assets may also include be considered to include any racks which must be returned to the supplier so that a subsequent shipment of goods can be made. In some cases the supplier may in fact own the racks and is therefore further interested in having them returned. If the supplier does not learn of an incorrect return shipment of racks until a carrier arrives at the supplier's facility, the supplier (and possibly the customer) have incurred a loss. The customer's asset is of course the ordered goods such as parts. To reduce or eliminate the cost of holding parts prior to assembly, the customer wants to receive the goods ideally not until the time at which they are needed for assembly. To coordinate this, the customer must have information on the transport of the goods to the factory by the carrier. While just-in-time delivery of parts is a good concept which can be applied to some manufacturing operations, it is not practical for all production. Therefore, the customer inevitably ends up holding some parts on the premises and is in effect functioning as a warehouse. In order to minimize the cost of this holding or warehousing, the customer must know which goods have arrived in which containers, and where the containers are located.
Another critical area which is not addressed at all by most logistics systems is that of racks which support product within a container. In many respects, these racks, their location, expected time of arrival on return, and condition, are just as critical and valuable as the products they carry. For without racks, many products cannot be shipped. There is thus a need to track shipping racks, particularly on the return trip to suppliers, as closely as the shipment of product.
The prior art has also overlooked the logistical management of relatively small parts such as fasteners or electronic components. Small parts are typically delivered in containers of progressively smaller size, from pallet to carton to box. Holding a quantity of small parts greater than is immediately required leads to losses within an assembly facility. Thus a system is needed to track the deliver of small parts containers and to monitor the running inventory in comparison to completed production.